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JAC members participated in the Women's March in many cities around the country. We marched in Washington, DC, Florida, New York, Boston, Denver, Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, where we lent our voices to those standing up for reproductive rights, immigration, equality, and climate science. The energy and passion was overwhelming.

The week began with honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., who committed his life to fighting for civli rights and justice. It ended with the inauguration of President Donald Trump and increased fears about the future of those same rights.Trump will fulfill his campaign promise to defund Planned Parenthood and appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v Wade. It is now time to turn that fear to action. We lost the election, but not the fight.

This has been a personal and nostalgic week for the Obama and the Biden families. JAC, whose office is based in the Chicago area, has had a front row seat to watch state Sen. Barack Obama become U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and ultimately President Obama. Vice President Joe Biden has been a friend to JAC since its early days, welcoming us to his office. We were honored to have him speak at our meetings.

One of the core rights as an American is the right to vote. Your vote is your choice in how the government works, what direction you wish the city, state, and country to take. Collectively, all Americans make their choices at the voting booth. Interfering with that right, restricting access of the voice of the citizenry can result in lopsided representation and an imbalance in our society affecting everything from education, access to clean water and food, health care, equality, business egulations, taxation, foreign policy, and so much more.

A federal judge once again advised counsel to keep their arguments focused on legal reasoning, rather than emotional pleas, on the last day of arguments in Whole Woman’s Health v. Lakey, the latest challenge to a Texas’ omnibus anti-abortion law expected to shutter all but seven existing abortion providers in the state come September 1, barring judicial intervention.

Judge Lee Yeakel pushed lawyers both for the plaintiffs—a group of independent Texas abortion providers from across the state who say they have been forced to close clinic doors in the wake of HB 2‘s passage—and the State of Texas, which is defending the law, to answer the key question posed in practically every abortion case since Roe v. Wade: “Exactly what is an undue burden?”

"[T]he United States has an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security. No country has done more to support their security than the United States. Just last week, the President signed a bill providing Israel an additional $225 million in Iron Dome funding during the Gaza crisis. We will continue to provide additional security assistance to Israel going forward. And let me be clear: There has been no change in policy, period." Marie Harf, Deputy Spokesperson for US State Department.

The calm of a renewed cease-fire settled over the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with focus shifting to the outcome of talks in Cairo on a long-term deal to end the latest fighting between Israel and Hamas.

The five-day truce, agreed upon by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators late Wednesday, was largely holding Thursday. A rocket was fired from Gaza at 8:20 a.m. local time, but fell short of Israeli territory, Israel's military said. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

The proportion of privately insured U.S. women who paid zero dollars out of pocket for oral contraceptive pills increased sharply, from 15% to 67%, between the fall of 2012 (before the ACA’s contraceptive coverage requirement took effect for most women) and the spring of 2014, according to a new Guttmacher study published in the journal Contraception. The study found that the proportion of women who paid nothing out of pocket also increased among those using the vaginal ring (from 20% to 74%) and among those using injectable contraceptives (from 27% to 59%). For women using the IUD, the proportion increased from 45% in the fall of 2012 to 62% in the three subsequent waves of the study combined.

In 2013, there were more laws passed to limit women’s reproductive rights than in the entire previous DECADE.

Ten million more women than men voted in the last election. In fact 53% of voters were women. That is not a voting block it's a majority. Women have decided literally every election in our lifetimes, yet, midterm turnout is historically low. LET'S CHANGE THAT!

One of the most shocking aspects of the murderous attack on a Jerusalem synagogue this morning by men with guns and axes is not the attack itself—we've seen, from time to time, this sort of sectarian barbarism take place in places like Jerusalem, and Hebron. The most shocking aspect is the wholesale endorsement of this slaughter by Hamas, a group that, during this summer's war in Gaza, half-succeeded in convincing the world that it wasn't what it actually is: a group with actual genocidal intentions.